


New Year, New Us

by EmpressKT



Category: Throne of Glass Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, New Year's Eve, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:27:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28484610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmpressKT/pseuds/EmpressKT
Summary: Life wasn’t fair.That's what Aelin had been telling herself the moment she realized she was in love with her best friend. But after years of pining and misunderstandings, one New Year’s Eve will change everything.
Relationships: Aelin Ashryver Galathynius | Celaena Sardothien & Rowan Whitethorn, Aelin Ashryver Galathynius | Celaena Sardothien/Rowan Whitethorn
Comments: 2
Kudos: 45





	New Year, New Us

**Author's Note:**

> Happy New Year everyone! Hope you all enjoy this quick little story that I wrote for the holiday. <3

Life wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair that she was sitting in a bar that smelled like sweat and stale beer, surrounded by bodies pressing against her while she tried to nurse her drink. It wasn’t fair that it was New Year’s Eve, and it was the least crowded place within walking distance, but the holiday meant that it was still full of people drunkenly yelling at the TV while they waited for the ball to drop in Time’s Square. It definitely wasn’t fair that she didn’t have anyone to spend New Year’s Eve with except Rowan Whitethorn, her best friend, who arrived back in Orynth a few weeks ago, looking like some kind of GQ model right off the airplane from Wendlyn. And it absolutely wasn’t fair that the distance between the two of them had done utterly nothing to dull the edge of being irrevocably in love with him.

No, Aelin decided, taking a sip from her drink. It truly wasn’t fair.

Realizing she was in love with her best friend was the worst thing to ever happen to her. She supposed it had been a gradual thing that had taken place over the many years of their friendship. They had been friends for most of their lives, growing up together with their families living just down the street from each other. And objectively, Aelin had known that Rowan was handsome. She heard the other girls comment on how hot he was all the time and how lucky she was that she was the only one that held his attention for so long. Aelin had just attributed that to being such great best friends. Rowan knew everything about her, and she knew everything about him.

But everything changed when they went to college.

Aelin opted to stay and attend Orynth University, whereas Rowan decided to travel to Wendlyn to attend the prestigious University of Doranelle. At the time, she had been so proud of her friend, getting into his dream school to study computer science, even though she knew it meant that their whole dynamic would change. And that first semester had been brutal for her. Her schedule had been packed with classes and extracurriculars, and Rowan had so much homework that he often would send her text messages and emails in the early hours of the morning after she had already gone to bed. There had been hardly any time for talking, let alone visiting each other. And before she knew it, the semester was over, and five months had passed since she had seen her best friend.

Aelin had missed him fiercely. She missed his laugh and their inside jokes. She missed being able to call him whenever she wanted to talk about stupid things or when she needed to talk about the stuff that made her upset. She missed the way his pine green eyes sparkled when he smiled in that special way that seemed to be for her only. She just missed _him._

So when she picked him up from the airport when he came home for that first winter break, and he ran towards her, scooping her up in his arms to hug her impossibly close, and she breathed in that familiar pine and snow scent that she missed for months, it hit her like a brick to her face.

She was in love with her best friend. And she was so, so fucked.

She decided then and there that she couldn’t tell him. She would not risk her best friend to something as stupid as an unrequited crush. But Rowan could tell something was amiss the entire break, despite her insistence to the contrary. And when he left to go back to Wendlyn, and she hugged him at the airport, she felt the shift in their relationship that she knew she had caused. He didn’t hug her as tightly or whisper secrets into her hair as he did before. He only frowned and wished her well in the upcoming semester, as soft and stoic as he had never been with her.

Somehow, in trying to keep her friendship from breaking, she’d broken it anyway.

They still talked, but it wasn’t the same. There were no more inside jokes or late-night conversations. Everything seemed to be in passing, all generic questions about how school was going or how their families were. And Aelin realized that this fragmented thing was her doing, all because she had to catch feelings for her best friend.

And then Lyria happened.

Aelin didn’t realize how much her relationship with Rowan had broken until she had gone to pick him up from the airport for Spring Break a few months later. She knew he had been dating but didn’t think it had been anything serious. He mentioned it in passing once or twice in their awkward conversations since Christmas. But surprise didn’t even begin to cover it when she arrived at the airport and saw not only Rowan but a beautiful girl with chestnut curls standing with her arm in his, looking like he’d hung the moon.

It was the first time she had ever cried over him. And the next day, she texted Chaol Westfall, the cute boy from her biology class, accepting his invitation for coffee.

And just like that, both she and Rowan were in relationships with other people. And she hated it.

Chaol realized early on that she held a flame for someone else, and Aelin had been too much of a coward to break it off with him, not when Rowan’s relationship with Lyria was going so well. So they tried to make it work. For over two years, they tried. Until they couldn’t anymore. And while she would never forgive Chaol for cheating on her with the pretty nursing student, she couldn’t exactly blame him, not when she never gave the relationship the consideration she should have.

But Rowan and Lyria were still going strong. At least she thought they were. She didn’t actually know because Rowan didn’t confide in her anymore. But when he picked him up from the airport a few weeks earlier, Lyria was nowhere in sight. And when she pressed Rowan for the girl’s whereabouts, he only frowned and said she would be spending the break with her family. She didn’t ask for any more details than that, and Rowan didn’t provide any. But she couldn’t deny the small bit of happiness that crept into her heart at the thought that maybe she might have her friend back, even for a little while.

And she had. Ever since his arrival back in Orynth, it was like the past three years never existed. They had slipped back into their old routine, and it was like coming home. They had done everything together that they hadn’t done since before they left for college. So many traditions had gone to the wayside in favor of relationships and growing up. And this one magical Christmas brought it all back. For the first time in years, Aelin felt herself breathe easy. Even knowing that it was temporary and he would return to Wendlyn in a few weeks would not deter her from cherishing this time they had together, just the two of them. He could ask anything of her, and she would say yes, no matter what.

Which is how she ended up alone in a dingy bar on New Year’s Eve, still completely and utterly in love with her best friend.

She had done an excellent job over the years pushing those pesky feelings deep down inside of her, but it had only taken one look at Rowan for them to come rushing back to the surface. It had been a while since she had gotten a good look at him. He was 22 now, and gone was the lanky teen she had known before. He had grown into an incredibly handsome man, the rest of his body catching up with his height. The usual fop of hair that she had grown accustomed to throughout his teen years was replaced by something shorter and more stylish. But most importantly, he had not lost that mischievous twinkle in his eyes that he seemed to reserve solely for her.

But more than that, he was the same goofy dude she grew up with as well. The one that laughed at her stupid jokes and called her out when she was a brat. The one that remembered that she loved chocolate hazelnut cake and made a special stop to the bakery to make sure she had it for Christmas. The one who really was her best friend through and through, despite everything that happened, and would always know more about her than she ever knew herself.

And he would never know that she was in love with him.

“What are you doing over here by yourself, Ace?”

A deep voice shook Aelin from her daydream at the bar, and she had to actively fight the shiver that the nickname caused. She turned to look at Rowan, who was leaning against the bar next to her, a lopsided grin on his face. She wondered if he remembered the last time he called her by that nickname had been before everything had gone to shit.

She smiled softly at her friend and lifted her glass. “Just drinking in the new year.”

Rowan laughed as he signaled to the bartender for a drink of his own. “You know what they say. What you do now sets the tone for the kind of year you’ll be having.”

“New year, new me,” Aelin said irreverently and took a long drag of her drink, repressing the grimace she felt creeping up over her features. She wasn’t particularly fond of whiskey, but she needed the bite to ground her during the evening. She noticed Rowan was staring at her oddly, but she shook it off. She had to keep reminding herself that it was her fault that he didn’t know this new version of herself – the one who drank alone at the bar while others partied the night away. It was no wonder he was looking at her strangely.

The bartender returned with Rowan’s drink, sliding it in front of him. She tried not to stare as he took a mouthful, his throat bobbing with each pull from his glass. Gods, everything this man did stoked a fire deep within her. She never knew such seemingly innocuous things could be so damn distracting, but then again, no one had ever seemed to grab her attention the way Rowan did.

Life was definitively not fair.

Aelin took another sip, turning away from him, lest she was caught staring herself. “What’s your excuse, then? You must be planning for a shit year if you’re here drinking with me.”

Rowan just shrugged and indulged in another large swallow. “New year, new me, I guess,” he said, repeating her words from earlier. And Aelin didn’t press him for any more details.

An awkward silence fell over them, the first one since he had been home. Aelin tried not to frown, but it seemed futile. Despite everything that had happened over the last few weeks and the magic of being themselves once again, Aelin had to wonder if the friendship was meant to last. They were two different people that had come together out of a determined nostalgia, but that alone didn’t make a friendship work. And with Lyria still in the mix, she knew that the second Rowan returned to Wendlyn, things between them would become complicated once again. She had tried to ignore Rowan’s not so subtle glances at his phone all evening, as if he were counting down the seconds not to the new year but to the moment where it was acceptable to be rid of her.

So deep in her misery, Aelin hadn’t realized how late it was until the crowd started counting down, and she turned to see that crystalline ball’s descent on the TV. Resigned to ringing in the new year drunk and morose, she turned back to her whiskey, taking another sip, savoring the burn as it slid down her throat. The counting grew louder around her as more of the bar’s patrons joined in, excited for the upcoming celebration, but Aelin focused solely on the drink in front of her. She didn’t dare see what Rowan was doing. It was bad enough that he was here to witness her misfortune.

Suddenly, before she had a chance to take another sip of her drink, Aelin was spun around by a pair of strong hands and soft lips pressed against hers while the bar broke out into loud cheers signaling the start of the new year.

Aelin pulled away immediately, her eyes wide as she took in the face of her best friend. He was inches away from hers, the closest that he had ever been, his breathing labored. A piece of that silvery blonde hair of his fell into his eyes, and her hand itched to rake it back, to run her hands through every single strand on his head. Those pine green eyes of his were wild, searching, as he waited for her response.

The problem was, she didn’t know how to respond. So she did the only thing she could do.

She panicked.

“Aelin…wait!” Rowan’s voice cried out as she pushed herself off the barstool and out the front door of the bar. She cursed the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes as she ran down the street towards the park she knew was only a few blocks away. Snow drifted lazily around her, crunching softly underneath her boots with each step she took. She shivered slightly in the cold, realizing that she stupidly left her coat at the bar with Rowan.

A tear left a hot track down her cheek as her thoughts turned back to Rowan. How many times had she thought about kissing him? Practically every time she was with Chaol and before then too. And he had made a mockery of her by taking something so precious and using it for a stupid new year’s tradition. Not only that, but he had a girlfriend. She refused to be the other woman in whatever his relationship was with Lyria.

She barely made it to the park when she heard his heavy footfalls behind her. She should have known he would follow her. Cursing, she wiped angrily at her tears before she turned on him. He stopped right in front of her, and she felt her heart stop. His face was flushed from the cold, and that perfect hair of his was disheveled and windswept from his run after her. In the streetlights, she could see the snow clinging to him, and if she weren’t so angry, she would have great difficulty from launching herself at him.

She folded her arms in front of her, partially to keep herself warm and partly to protect herself from him. Because she needed to protect herself. He held her heart in his hands at this very moment, even if he didn’t know it, and he could very well shatter it with his next words. Rowan just stared at her before lifting her coat in between them.

Aelin glared at the offending object before snatching it out of his hands. She quickly pulled it on before resuming her stance. Rowan rubbed his hand on his neck, casting his eyes downward, and Aelin felt rage burn away inside of her. He had absolutely no right to feel embarrassed, not when he instigated all of this.

They stood there for a moment in silence, the frostbitten air doing little to cool the raging inferno churning away inside her. She kept her lips pursed to keep the torrent of emotions at bay, but she was feeling too much too fast.

“Why did you do that?” she bit out angrily.

Rowan’s head shot up, his eyes locking with hers. He paused, breathing in the air around him as if the ice and snow centered him. “I broke up with Lyria.”

Aelin’s heart stumbled at the revelation. Rowan broke up with Lyria? When did that happen? Why didn’t he say anything? But then she remembered the great chasm between the two of them that they had only recently begun to traverse. And it certainly felt like that tenuous peace they had found the last few weeks crumbled the second Rowan’s lips found hers. And Aelin felt the anger surge once more.

“So what? You missed her, is that it?”

“What? No!” She barely glimpsed the wild look in his eyes at the thought.

“Oh, so I was just convenient then.”

“Aelin, no. That’s not…”

“You know, you could have told me, Rowan,” she interrupted. “I would have played wingman. There were dozens of single women in that bar that you could have kissed. You didn’t have to kiss _me._ ”

She ignored his face crumbling as she turned to walk away from him. Ignored his soft call of “Aelin, wait…” that sounded as she moved down the path. She knew better than to get her hopes up that it meant anything more than what it was. Rowan had shattered her heart into a million pieces on the pavement, and he didn’t even know. And he would never know.

“Dammit, Aelin! Would you just listen to me?” She didn’t know when Rowan caught up with her, too lost in her thoughts, but was just behind her on the path. Grabbing her by the hand, he quickly swung her around and pulled her flush against his chest. She could hardly breathe at being so close to him, that familiar pine and snow scent of his enveloping her. “I kissed you because I _wanted_ to kiss you.”

Everything in the world seemed to stop at those words. Aelin dared to look up at him, caught the pleading look in his eyes. Her hands had landed on his chest, and she could feel his racing heart underneath her fingertips. Her mouth parted in surprise when Rowan wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her impossibly closer to him.

“Come on, Ace. You know I’ve been in love with you for years.”

Aelin’s jaw dropped. She could hardly believe what she was hearing, even as Rowan’s mouth tilted into a small hopeful smile. Her heart was racing, and she felt dizzy and hot – such an odd contrast to the winter world surrounding her. But Rowan’s strong arms held her steady as she slowly began to process what Rowan was telling her.

“You’re in love with me?” she breathed, barely audible even in the stillness of the night as if saying it any louder might make the whole dream disappear. Rowan only nodded, and Aelin swore he had stopped breathing.

Before Aelin knew what she was doing, she leaned up and softly pressed her lips against his. She felt him inhale sharply at that barely-there kiss, but it didn’t take long for him to respond in kind. She felt his arm tighten around her waist as a hand came up to cup her jaw, arching her back delicately. She positively melted against him, her hands sliding up his chest so she could wrap her arms around his neck. The burning her gut roared to life with the strength of a star as he deepened the kiss, his hand sliding around her jaw to tangle in the hair at the nape of her neck.

This was the kiss they should have had at midnight if he had said something sooner.

Something snagged in her mind, and she pulled her mouth away from his, breathing heavily. Rowan took it as an invitation to place hot, wet kisses down the side of her neck, nipping at the sensitive flesh behind her ear, as if he knew already that it was a particularly erogenous spot for her. She couldn’t help the soft moan that spilled out of her mouth.

But as much as she wanted to continue to explore this newfound revelation with Rowan, it would have to wait because she suddenly had some questions she needed answering.

She pulled out of Rowan’s embrace, almost laughing at the adorably confused look on his face when he realized that she was no longer there. She faced him with her hands on her hips, a mirthful scowl on her face.

“What did you mean that I knew that you had been in love with me for years?”

Rowan’s eyes widened, and he coughed slightly, averting his eyes from her piercing gaze. “Well, umm…I thought that was why you pulled away freshman year. Because you found out that I had been in love with you since high school.”

Aelin sucked in a breath. But it seemed that Rowan had much more to get off his chest because he continued.

“It sucked so much, letting you go. You were my best friend, but I figured I would give you your space and deal with it on my own. And I tried to move on. And you had been with Chaol, and I figured you were happy, so I tried to be happy with Lyria. But she’s not you.”

“So I broke up with her because it wasn’t fair for her to stay in a relationship with me when my heart wasn’t in 100%. That was months ago. But I didn’t know how to reach out to you, not when we hadn’t really spoken in years, and last I checked, you were still with him. But then I found out that you and Chaol broke up, and I knew I couldn’t let another year slip by without shooting my shot. Because it’s always been you, Aelin.”

His words swirled around her in the dark, and they filled her soul like the precious things they were. Rowan loved her. He really and truly loved her. It was an impossible wish she had for years, and it was finally coming true. And before she could really help herself, a laugh bubbled out from between her lips.

Rowan frowned at her. “I’m sorry,” she laughed, “I’m not laughing at you. It’s just…we’re both _idiots._ ”

Rowan’s frown deepened, and Aelin only laughed harder at the puzzled look on his face. After a moment, she managed to compose herself, wiping away a tear collected in the corner of her eye. She wasn’t sure if it was from the laughter or just the sheer overwhelming roller coaster of emotions she had been through in the short evening.

“Rowan, the reason I pulled away was that I realized that I was in love with you, and I didn’t want to make things weird between us. Which ultimately made things weird between us.”

A beat of silence echoed between the two of them before Rowan snorted loudly. Another giggle escaped her lips, and before she knew it, they were leaning against each other to support themselves while they laughed in the quiet of the park.

Moments later, the laughter died down into breaths and sighs as Rowan kissed her again, deeply, reverently. Aelin smiled against his lips, slipping her hands underneath his coat to slide along his back. She felt his breath hitch as he pulled her close once more, his hands leaving little trails of fire everywhere he touched.

“Here’s my new year’s resolution,” he mumbled against her lips. “Let’s try not to be idiots going forward.”

“Agreed,” she replied, relishing the feel of his lips against hers, something she had only ever thought of alone in the dark of her room and was now her reality. “New year, new us.”

Rowan chuckled softly, sweeping her up in another long, satisfying kiss. “New year, new us.”


End file.
